Shannon Phillips

While Robin is off to his first day of kindergarten, Sol and Davy play together under Thora’s supervision:

Update: Robin was so much happier when I picked him up after school today! He said he had a good day, he likes kindergarten, and he’s looking forward to going back again tomorrow. Such a relief!

I took a picture of Davy tonight for use as his “cubby photo” this year at preschool. I had to catch him right out of the bath to get a clean face!

It’s a mixed-age classroom, which I like very much, but when I saw my little guy sitting there flanked by older and bigger boys my tummy knotted up. I wanted to grab each person in that classroom, child and adult, by the shoulders and hiss “That is my heart sitting there on that rug in an orange polo shirt, do you understand? He is my naked, beating heart. Be kind to him.”

But instead I gave him a high five and I walked away.

Here is a chubby chortling baby!

Preschool is out for the boys—next year Robin will in kindergarten, but Davy and Sol still have years to look forward to at Peter Pan. The school made a compilation of photos for parents—here’s some of our boys.

(Photo by Sam.)

Davy’s birthday was yesterday—we had a small party for him at Niles Canyon, and there will be a little bit of a “do” at school tomorrow. He is thrilled with his new toys and clothes and books, but the biggest present (from my perspective) is one he has recently given us: Davy is now reliably potty-trained. After all, he’s a big kid now, as he’d be quick to tell you.

Here’s a few photos from yesterday’s train excursion:

“Do I need a permit for these guns?”

I can’t really write a coherent post today. I’m just so, so happy.

We’re going to take the boys into San Francisco tonight to join in the celebrations. It’s the first time since moving to Oakland that I’ve really ached to be back in My City. I need to be there tonight—I need to celebrate this with my people—and I want my children to have the chance to form memories of this historic day.

Updated with pictures:

I just kept telling Robin, “Look how happy everyone is! Remember that, when you remember today.”

Robin graduated from preschool today. There’s actually another month of school left to go, but at the Peter Pan preschool the graduation ceremony is held in mid-June—I think because a lot of folks start leaving for summer vacation. It’s called Key Day, and each graduating child is awarded a big wooden key adorned with lots of sparkly bits, to symbolize that they can always come back to visit. After the kids get their keys they run across a “bridge” set up in the playground, which represents them “crossing over into the wider world of learning.” It’s a nice ceremony, with a generous, individualistic feel—it kind of captures the spirit of the co-op.

And as it happens, yesterday, we got a call from the Oakland Unified School District. After learning that we’d been wait-listed for our top-choice school (Urban Montessori Charter School), we kind of started scrambling around for a back-up plan. One of the things we did was to put in the paperwork for late admissions to various public schools in the city, knowing that Robin would only be offered a place in ones that happened to be under-enrolled. Since competition is fierce for spots in the district’s top-performing schools, I kind of figured that this whole process was a long shot at best. For whatever reason, though, it seems that Kaiser Elementary had a space open, and they’ve offered it to Robin.

A little OUSD inside baseball: There are three Oakland public schools that have test scores rivaling what you see at private schools. Those three are Hillcrest, Montclair, and Thornhill—not coincidentally located in the most prosperous sections of Oakland, up in the hills—and we did not even bother applying to any of these, as neighborhood kids get preference and those schools are considered so desirable that even living in the right zip code isn’t a guarantee of admission. We don’t live in the right zip code, needless to say, and anyway I’m pretty sure that there’s a wonky feedback loop going on involving: 1) the kind of parents who care about test scores more than anything else; 2) the kind of kids who have private tutors and get good scores on standardized tests; and 3) the kind of test scores that kids who go to Hillcrest, Montclair, or Thornhill tend to get. In other words, I am pretty darn sure that the quality of the schools has only a loose relationship to the strength of the test scores.

Be that as it may, there’s also a satellite constellation of schools located in neighboring areas—collectively known as the “hills schools”—that get decent test scores but aren’t quite so insanely difficult to get into, and as a result attract a more diverse set of kids. The hills schools include those already mentioned as well as Chabot, Joaquin Miller, and Kaiser. I did not expect to be offered a place at any of them, but we applied to Chabot and Kaiser anyway, because they honestly seemed like they might be good fits for Robin. What I want from a school is, basically, an extension of Peter Pan—a school that recognizes the value of creativity, freedom, and play. I want a school that Robin will love in the same way that he loves going to Peter Pan. I am convinced that kids have an innate drive to learn and that they do best when given the freedom to pursue their own interests along with the materials, support, and structured challenges they need to progress. I think worksheets are the mind-killer and that if school is boring, that means it’s broken. (School can be hard without being boring.)

The bottom line is—I’m pretty skeptical of America’s public school system in general and Oakland’s in particular, but I’ve heard good things about Kaiser and I’m willing to give it a chance. It’s kind of a miracle that we were offered a spot at all. It’s a fair distance from our house so transportation will be an issue, but there’s a number of former Peter Pan families that have kids there now, so we might be able to get a carpool going.

I think if Urban Montessori finds a space for Robin, we’ll probably still take it. But Kaiser is our default plan now.